Vacation, Part I; A tree that looks at God all day

When we left for our vacation this past Saturday, we knew where we were staying that night (in Oak Ridge, TN with our friends, the Westons) and we knew we were coming home today. Other than a rough idea that we were going to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, we had no plans. As the week progressed, we found our way and had a great time.

On Saturday, we took out time driving to Oak Ridge with a planned stop at Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in North Carolina. Joyce Kilmer is a park with trees as old as 400 years. This was our first hike, of many, during our trip and we really saw some impressive trees. It is hard for the pictures to do the trees justice.

As were were hiking back down the trail, I came across this guy. David got close, taking the picture and, at the time, thought it was a king snake. Looking at the picture now, he realizes that it was a copperhead

After Joyce Kilmer, we continue to take back roads on our way to Oak Ridge. As we crossed North Carolina/Tennessee boarder on Route 129, we came across The Dragon's Tail. This was an establishment with about 500 motorcycles parked in the lot. We continued down the mountain and saw more motorcycles than one would see at bike week. Along the side of the road at three different points, photographers were stationed, taking shots of the bikes and performance cars as they made their way along 129.

On curvy mountain roads, motorcycles were passing us and flying down the mountain. The first guy that we saw who's bike got out from under him was going in the opposite direction. He came around a turn and lost control and went sliding into the bank, and luckily, not off the cliff. He was traveling with others, who stopped to help and he appeared fine. The second guy we saw skid off the road came up behind us, passing us without a second glance. We lost sight of him and about a mile down the road, found him pushing his bike out of the ditch. We stopped to ask if he needed help, but he made his way out on his own. At the bottom of the mountain, we also saw a car that had spun out and hit the guard rail. It was a fun drive, that apparently many people enjoy on a Saturday afternoon in the summer.

And on to Tennessee we continued.